You
always hear how expensive it is to go to college, but it doesn’t
have to be. Community colleges are an inexpensive option, and there
are all kinds of scholarships and financial aid packages available
to help pay for 4-year schools. Make sure you AND your parents work
together to find out as much as possible about the cost of college
and the kinds of financial aid available. Your guidance counselor
and college financial aid offices can also help.
If
you participate in College Knowledge,
we’ll send you and your parents financial aid information and
help you answer questions about paying for school.
When you start looking into financial aid, there are a few things
you can do that really help:
- Research
the kinds of financial aid available.
- Keep
track of deadlines for applications.
- Narrow
your college choices and find out what kind of financial aid is
available at the school(s) you’re interested in. Also, find
out how much these schools will cost to attend and use a financial
aid calculator to figure out how much aid you’ll require.
- Make
sure you know which forms to fill out and what you’ll need
to send in to apply for aid.
Financial
Aid Overview
Financial Aid or Student Aid is money that helps students pay for
tuition, fees, books, and living expenses like food, housing, and
transportation. Student aid is available to a wide variety of people.
It’s a myth that a student has to be poor in order to qualify.
You do have to show that you need help paying for college. Things
like your family’s income, family size, and number of family
members in college are used to calculate the amount of student aid
you’ll qualify for.
What
Kind of Financial Aid is Available?
There are four basic kinds of aid:
- Grants
offer financial help based on a student’s need and/or grades.
These do not have to be repaid.
- Scholarships
are awarded based on a student’s achievement in a specific
area; for instance, academic, civic, or athletic. Scholarships
do not have to be repaid and are offered by all kinds of different
organizations.
- Work-study
employment is a job you have on campus or in the community, which
helps you pay for college and which you usually get through the
financial aid office at the school you’re attending.
- Loans
are available for students or parents. This is money you borrow
to help pay for college. Loans must be repaid after you graduate.
- For
more information about financial aid, check out the California
Student Aid Commission’s website or visit one of our
partner colleges’ Financial Aid Office websites:
Resources
- College
Knowledge Financial Aid Resources
- Use
our Financial Aid Checklist to
figure out what you and your parents need to do to apply.
- Use
the Who Can Receive Federal and State
Financial Aid? information sheet to see if you are eligible
to apply.
- Local
Scholarships are listed in a notebook available at every high
school and public library in Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.
The notebook is updated by the Humboldt Area Foundation every
January.
Links
U.S. Department of Education
This site is REALLY important, and you should begin your student
aid research here. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid
(FAFSA) is a form you HAVE to fill out in order to get any kind
of financial aid, and this is where it lives. The site also has
lots of information about financial aid in Spanish and English,
and lets you fill out the FAFSA application online.
California
Student Aid Commission
This site is THE source for information on California financial
aid. It lists all the programs in California that could help you
pay for college.
CollegeNet
This site has lots of information about different types of aid available
and how to apply for each. You can also search for scholarships
and apply for them online.
FastWeb.com
The ultimate in scholarship searches. You can enter personal information
(hobbies, sports, clubs, etc.) and they’ll email you with up-to-the-minute
scholarship information that applies directly to you.
Ed
Fund
This site helps you plan for college and figure out how to manage
your money once you get there. It helps you keep track of your student
loans, and is an excellent resource if you’ll be using loans
to pay for school.
FinAid
This great site has calculators that help you figure out how much
college will cost, as well as financial aid and scholarship information.
It’s very useful and helpful—a “must visit.”
WiredScholar
A comprehensive website which takes you from preparing for college
to selecting the right school and applying. Most importantly
it provides access to a free scholarship search engine that
contains over 2.4 million scholarships. |
